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I think a lot of people forget about Tyler Wright, because he was only here about three months, but he remains one of the true Wilkes-Barre/Scranton success stories. After being the first captain in team history — and a good one at that — he went up and played 400 or so NHL games before retiring. Anyway, he’s the development coach for the Columbus Blue Jackets now and he should be good in that role.

The Ryan Lannon press release came out today as well, which means all the team’s restricted free agents have now been signed. Which is usually what happens. Which is why the Lannon and Tim Brent signings weren’t really all that interesting to me.

I was a little bit surprised that Reagan Rome headed for Phoenix in the ECHL. I thought he looked good while he was with the Penguins. Then again, maybe that’s because he was paired with Micki DuPont and at the time, DuPont was red hot. I’m disappointed that Rome is gone because he spent a couple of offseasons as a dealer in a casino and I wanted to write a story about that. Maybe some other time.

To LGP, I’ve never seen Ned Havern play. Could somebody who has post a little scouting report in the comment section? Could he challenge for an AHL job in camp?

As far as waivers go, it’s a fairly complicated process, but the rule of thumb is a player on his first contract doesn’t have to clear waivers and everybody else does. Here’s the chart. Once a player hits the years or games played threshold, he then has to clear waivers.

Age when signed

Years from NHL signing

NHL games played

18

5

160

19

4

160

20

3

160

21

3

80

22

3

70

23

3

60

24

2

60

25

1

On the Nailers joining up with the Flyers, a dual affiliation is usually a good way to add some talent, as the Penguins found out last year. The only question I have about it is in goal. The Flyers have, I believe, five goalies under contract under the NHL level (Boucher, Houle, Munroe, Beauchemin and Duchesne). The Penguins have three (Conklin, Brown, Curry). That looks like a problem brewing.

And to Andy, thanks for being considerate about the postage. The Bobby Orr book stays in the prize vault, but you still get a metaphorical gold star for guessing Conklin right.

Otherwise, I think we’re in the dog days of summer now as signings have slowed to a trickle. I think we have five weeks or so before it heats back up. Bring up something interesting in the comment section or via email. I’m bored.

Boy, McLovin was on top of that one in the comment section earlier today. Alain Nasreddine has indeed agreed to re-sign with the Penguins. It’s a one-year, two-way deal.

A story in tomorrow’s paper will have the details, but the nuts and bolts of it is this. The Penguins approached Nasreddine about re-signing earlier this summer, but told him he could have some time to seek a one-way deal elsewhere. He got seven or eight contract offers, but no one-ways, so he decided to return to the Penguins.

On paper, he looks like the No. 8 defenseman on the depth chart. You would assume, then, that he would start the year in Wilkes-Barre, but you better write that lightly in pencil. One injury puts him in the top seven. Or the parent Penguins could decide to keep 8 D to start the year. Or they might decide to bring Kris Letang along slowly.

Regardless of where he starts the season, Nasreddine is exactly the kind of defensemen the Penguins needed to slot into the organizational depth chart.

Got off the phone with Ty Conklin a little while ago. He said he sees signing with the Penguins as a chance to get his career back in the direction he wants it to go. If you look at his career numbers, that makes a lot of sense.

He took Hamilton to the Calder Cup finals in 2003 then had a really good NHL season in Edmonton in 03-04. Then the lockout hit, followed by a not-as-good season in Edmonton that ended with this famous stickhandling mistake in the Stanley Cup finals. Then last year, he kind of got bounced around in the Columbus organization before being traded to Buffalo, which needed a backup for Ryan Miller after dealing away Martin Biron.

With Dany Sabourin signed to a one-way and Conklin a two-way ($500,000 in the NHL and $100,000 in the AHL, according to the Canadian Press), it’s pretty clear that Sabourin is the No. 2 and Conklin the No. 3. Conklin said he plans to head to camp with the intention of winning an NHL job, but he also said that “I understand what my role is and where I fit in.”

I’d say how Conklin bounces back and how Dave Brown handles the pro game will be two of the major factors in predicting the kind of success WBS has this year.

I guess it’s possible that John Curry beats out Brown for that spot, by the way. I mean, we shouldn’t rule out that possibility in July. Even if he doesn’t, it’s no death sentence for an undrafted goalie who had a shoulder injury in college to start his pro career in the ECHL. In fact, it’s probably the way it should be.

With a No. 3 goalie signed, the only major hole I see in the organizational depth chart is a No. 8 defenseman in the Alain Nasreddine mold. Rumor has it the Penguins have one or two more signings in the hopper before shutting her down for a while. We’ll see if that hole is addressed.

To Andy, nice job being the first commenter to guess Conklin. If you want to email me your address, I’ll send you a copy of the book “Searching for Bobby Orr” as a prize.

A couple of comments before I go. To John, I have no reason to believe Patrick Ehelechner is in the organization’s plans. I mean, if there was ever a year to bring him over, it was this year, and that’s not happening.

To nafsnep, as the roster is presently constructed, the only way I see Letang playing in the minors is in the unlikely event Alex Goligoski or Ryan Lannon beats him out in camp or if he really struggles in the NHL and needs a confidence boost. That could change based on the theoretical No. 8 defenseman signing I’ve been talking about, but for now, I see Letang playing the whole season in Pittsburgh.

I think I know the veteran goalie the Penguins are about to announce the signing of, but the number I have for him doesn’t seem to be working and it’s getting late to be making phone calls. I’ll work on it some more tomorrow, but for now, let’s play the Eklund game again. I’m not as sure as I was about Engelland, so this isn’t a jb4.

The Penguins are close to signing a goalie who finished last season as an NHL backup (jb3).

After a bunch of signings while I was on vacation, I see two holes on the Penguins depth chart. I think Pittsburgh needs another depth D who can compete with guys like Ryan Lannon or Alex Goligoski to be called up if injuries strike. I also think they need a No. 3 goaltender with some pro experience. Pittsburgh’s front office might be willing to let Dave Brown and John Curry learn on the job as the WBS tandem, but if Fleury or Sabourin gets hurt, they’re not going to want to call up a rookie.

So here’s the point: Rumor is one of those two areas will be addressed in the next couple days. I don’t know anything more than that. Speculate away.

As for what’s already happened, the addition of Goligoski, Mark Ardelan and Deryk Engelland shores up the WBS defense considerably. You’ve got three guys (Goligoski, Ardelan and Jonathan D’Aversa) who can move the puck and steady stay-at-home types in Lannon and Engelland. Ben Lovejoy and Paul Bissonnette are six and seven. One more veteran would help a lot, but this picture is far less bleak than it was a week ago.

Up front, it looks like Pittsburgh has 12 NHL forwards pretty much pencilled in. There figures to be competition for the extra forward spot between Tim Brent, Jeff Taffe, Jonathan Filewich, Ryan Stone, Tyler Kennedy, Nathan Smith and Chris Minard. If Erik Christensen ends up on a wing, Brent becomes the favorite.

If it shakes down like that, WBS might be a little light at center, since I think Taffe and Minard are both primarily left wings. Perhaps Stone or Kennedy move back to the middle. Perhaps Kurtis McLean gets some second-line minutes. Perhaps the team is still in the market for a minor league center.

As for today’s Dennis Bonvie signing, I think the Bonvie-Boogaard-Engelland trio will become popular once East Division rivalry games get ugly. When I talked to Bonvie about the signing, he said he wasn’t ready yet to say for sure that this would be his last season. I’m sure I’ll talk to him about it again when he comes to town for his camp Aug. 6-9.

Speaking of the camp, Bonvie said there are still spots open. It’s for kids 5 to 16. McLean is scheduled to help instruct. For more information, call 208-5430.

As for that Robitaille talk, don’t know where that started. I was referring to Engelland all along. I just didn’t have enough confirmation to write it before I left for vacation, so I threw it out there a an Eklund-style rumor. I’ve never heard Robitaille’s name mentioned seriously in Penguins circles at all.

As always, please email or comment with corrections, questions, etc. I made some changes to this version, separating NHL contracts from AHL contracts, eliminating the “Europeans You’ll Probably Never See” and adding the other Europeans to the “Potential Rookies” category.

My vacation starts in a few hours, so I won’t be posting this week unless something really Earth-shattering happens and I go to the Horry County (S.C.) Public Library for some Internet access.

I actually picked a pretty bad week to be off, as word is the Penguins are planning to announce a whole bunch of signings in the next 10 days or so, which will obviously greatly shape the 2007-08 WBS roster.

One teaser I will leave you with: A former Hershey Bear either has signed or is close to signing with the Penguins (jb4). Toughness is probably his greatest asset.

Shortly before 2 a.m. Eastern time, Max Talbot busted out of the World Series of Poker. Details (and the above photo) come from PokerNews.com.

With his chip stack shrinking, Talbot went all-in with an Ace-10. An opponent called with Ace-Queen and Talbot was left to return to his day job. Asked to explain what went wrong, Talbot was blunt. “I suck at poker,” he said. Even so, he outlasted famous players like Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim, among hundreds of others, so maybe his assessment of his own game is a little bit harsh.

Earlier in the night, Talbot built his chip stack as high as 36,000, thanks to this big hand. A player with J-10 offsuit raises to 2,000 and Max Talbot calls with Q-8 of diamonds. Everybody else folds. The flop was J-7-4 with two diamonds. The turn card is the Jack of diamonds, making a flush for Talbot and trip jacks for the other player. The other player goes all-in for 10,000 and Talbot makes the fairly easy call. The river is another diamond and Talbot wins.

I’ll ask him how the times he would “go to the Arena Bar & Grill, order a couple of beers, try to have fun, play some poker until 4, 5 o’clock in the morning, show up tired to practice” helped his poker game evolve.

Another former Penguins captain found a new home today when Tom Kostopoulos signed with the Montreal Canadiens. Two years, $1.8 million. That’ll work.

A drastic change in the makeup of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers is apparently underway, as the team has signed enforcer Kip Brennan and physical winger Tim Jackman and is also bringing in former Penguins/Nailers rat Pascal Morency.

Finally, it looks like the Norfolk Admirals have made another solid addition, as defenseman Bryce Lampman comes in from the Rangers for tough guy Mitch Fritz (if Lampman doesn’t stick in Tampa, of course). Hartford’s already bringing back Francis Lessard. If they keep Dale Purinton too, that team could be horrifying.

At the very least, the Hartford-Bridgeport rivaly just got a lot uglier.

The exodus from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins was not unexpected.

By the end of the playoffs, Matt Carkner and Wade Brookbank weren’t regulars in the lineup. No surprise to see them go. Micki DuPont was itching to go somewhere where he would get either a big AHL salary or a better NHL shot. I’m sure he’s getting one or the other with St. Louis/Peoria. And Nolan Schaefer’s days were numbered when Dany Sabourin signed to back up Marc-Andre Fleury.

That all those moves happened in one day, however, makes it jarring.

Anyway, no confirmation yet, but it looks like the Penguins have signed Nathan Smith from Manitoba/Vancouver. A colleague in Winnipeg says Smith is a good penalty killer with some offensive upside who is a good guy in the room. A serious knee injury has hampered his career so far, but he seems to be healthy at this point.

Smith is a good addition. Add one more veteran scoring forward and that part of the depth chart’s set.

Finding a veteran goalie to pair with Dave Brown won’t be impossible either. They need to find the next Andrew Penner, even if it actually is Andrew Penner.

Defense, however, is another story altogether. Quality defensemen are harder to find.

The first thing I’d do is immediately try to get Alain Nasreddine back in the fold. Offer him a competitive minor league salary and since he knows Michel Therrien won’t hesitate to call him up if a need arises, it becomes an attractive offer. This should be a top priority.

Replacing a rugged veteran like Carkner or Brookbank shouldn’t be too hard — in today’s game, those guys don’t have teams beating down their doors with contracts in hand — but finding a replacement for DuPont could be difficult. There are guys like Derrick Walser and Garrett Stafford on the free agent list, but dependable puck movers just don’t grow on trees.

In other words, calling the Penguins “a smoking wreck” at this point might be a little too dramatic, but yeah, they have a lot of work to do to resemble a good team.

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

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